Zirconium deficiency in nasicon-type compounds: Crystal structure of Na 5Zr(PO 4) 3

Single crystals of Na ₅Zr(PO ₄) ₃ have been prepared using a flux method. At high temperature (200|MoC), the crystal structure can be described as a 3D network of PO ₄ tetrahedra corner shared with ZrO ₆ and NaO ₆ octahedra. In fact, this compound belongs to the Nasicon-type class which exhibits a large nonstoichiometry range by zirconium deficiency.